1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mobile communication terminal for performing wireless communication by receiving a wireless signal according to a Code-Division-Multiple-Access (hereinafter called CDMA) communication system by using an antenna array containing a plurality of antenna elements. Also, the present invention relates to a directivity-pattern-controlling method for the antenna array.
2. Description of Related Art
In a mobile communication system, a base station is conventionally provided with an antenna array containing a plurality of antenna elements. The base station forms a directivity pattern for transmitting and receiving the signal and follows the position of the mobile communication terminal. Also, in a mobile communication system, following performance (maintainability of wireless communication connection with a base station) of the mobile communication terminal such as a mobile phone for a base station becomes more important from a communication quality point of view. Therefore, it is proposed that an antenna array containing a plurality of antenna elements is provided to the mobile communication terminal so as to form a directivity pattern for transmitting and receiving signals
For conventional controlling methods for an antenna array directivity pattern, for example, an adaptive algorithm based on a Minimum Mean-Squared Error (hereinafter called MMSE) such as Recursive Least Square Algorithm (hereinafter called RLS algorithm), Sample Matrix Inversion algorithm (hereinafter called SMI algorithm), and Least Mean Square algorithm (hereinafter called LMS algorithm) is used therfor. In this controlling method, a set of weighting factors for forming a directivity pattern of an antenna array containing a plurality of antenna elements is determined according to an adaptive algorithm such that a squared error between a signal which is received from the base station and a reference signal which is locally generated is minimized.
However, there is a problem as follows when a conventional directivity-pattern-controlling method for an antenna array is applied to a mobile communication terminal for performing a wireless communication by receiving a wireless signal according to CDMA communication system. Conventional directivity-pattern-controlling methods for an antenna array need a reference signal for its own use. In a conventional directivity-pattern-controlling method, a set of weighting factors is determined such that a square error between the received signal and the reference signal is minimum. When a despreading process is performed on the received signal, the desired signal is amplified by an amount of spread gain; thus, there is less effect caused by noise and interference signal for forming a directivity pattern. Also, there is less interference in a mobile station environment than in a base station environment, and interference level is usually less than that of the desired signal. Therefore, there is a possibility that convergence performance of an adaptive algorithm for determining a set of weighting factors for forming a directivity pattern of an antenna array will degrade. Furthermore, there is a possibility that a weighting factor cannot be determined due to the divergence of a recursive calculation used for determining the weighting factors. Accordingly, directivity-pattern-controlling operation of an antenna array becomes unstable.
FIG. 4 is a view showing a series of directivity patterns of an antenna array which are formed by controlling a directivity pattern of an antenna array by applying a conventional antenna array directivity-pattern-controlling method (LMS algorithm is used thereat) after despreading when a wireless signal according to CDMA communication system is received at a mobile station (downlink). In FIG. 4, iteratively updated directivity pattern of a four-element-λ/2-spacing linear antenna array are shown. As shown in FIG. 4, a stable directivity pattern whose main beam is oriented to the incidence direction of a signal has not been formed by a conventional controlling method using an LMS algorithm. This is because the convergence performance of the LMS algorithm degrades for the above-mentioned reason.
As explained above, when a directivity pattern of an antenna array is controlled by applying a conventional antenna array directivity-pattern-controlling method after despreading to a CDMA mobile communication terminal, directivity-pattern-controlling operation becomes unstable. Thus, it is difficult to improve the tracking performance of the directivity pattern to a base station.
Also, when a high-speed antenna array directivity-pattern-controlling method such as RLS or SMI is used, a calculation amount for determining a weighting factor is large for minimizing the square error; therefore, electricity consumption increases. As a result, there is a problem in that battery life of the mobile communication terminal is short.